


My Caged Voice

by tywinning



Series: Ghosts of the Rebellion [3]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Prequel, Preseries, Robert's Rebellion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-03
Updated: 2013-01-03
Packaged: 2017-11-23 12:14:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/622017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tywinning/pseuds/tywinning
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Life of Rhaella Targaryen</p>
            </blockquote>





	My Caged Voice

“You’re hurting me.” Sometimes I had to cry out, lest my caged voice bruise harder than my brother. “You’re _hurting_ me.” No one was listening. Not Aerys, not the knights outside the door. No one wanted to listen.

No one _ever_ wanted to listen.

The septas complained – endearingly, of course; I was a princess – that I was their fussiest baby. I woke them every hour, and I kept on waking them with my screaming, even with a handful of namedays behind me. The maesters called it terrors in the night. “An affliction any child – from any House – could suffer from,” they assured, to Father and Grandfather’s relief. Certain maladies run in the family, after all.

When I was four, Grandfather came to sit in a cushioned chair beside my bed. He wasn’t the King to me, not in his shirtsleeves with only Ser Duncan beside the door, but his strong, calm presence still insisted all would be well. He promised he would stay, all night, and sang me to sleep.

I still woke up screaming. The only difference was, I had finally learned the word for the creature that haunted me. When I spoke it, Grandfather paled. “Never speak of this. Forget it. Forget everything you dream.” I did not understand; I would not learn of his drunken brother until I was older. All I could think was _my grandfather_ – the man who sat in a giant’s chair, and who could make everyone bow – was afraid. All because of my new word: stag.

Girls were brought, lords’ daughters from across the Seven Kingdoms, to act as my companions, to share my meals, my lessons, my bed. Everyone thought they helped. Father smiled more when the septas told him I was waking less. It wasn’t true. I simply learned to scream inside myself, to avoid the silent accusations of sleepy-eyed bedmates. _Are you mad?_

One girl I woke even with silence; Joanna had very sharp hearing. She leaned forward with interest, asking me, dispassionately, “Why are you shaking?” I was so relieved that the words tumbled out in a waterfall. But when I mentioned the lion at the gates – I did not know him, not then – she bristled and turned away, whispering to her pillow that I was right not to speak. I could have silenced her, more thoroughly than she ever silenced me; a bloody bed is a deadly place. I lacked her cruelty.

I spoke up, desperate to change what I dreamt. I warned my favorite septa to take care on the stairs. As she smiled back over her shoulder and told me not to worry, she tripped and broke her neck. I ordered my groomsman not to exercise the mare Bonifer gifted me. A pageboy stole out into the snow with my horse instead that winter day, and lamed her by his inexperience. I learned too late. My dreams were obdurate.

When I begged my father to meet the knight who already named me his queen –  to speak with Grandfather on my behalf – he sipped his wine as if he heard only the crying of the wind. In anger and despair, I wore a dress of screaming scarlet to my wedding. The High Septon proudly married me to my brother, loudly proclaiming ours to be a most blessed union, as if he neither heard my slurred pledge of love, nor smelled the rum on my reeking breath.

My ladies always looked politely away from the blood and bruises that shouted of my brother’s tender touch.

My eldest son – my sad, silver prince who hoisted the weight of the world onto his shoulders – brushed off my reprimands when I told him he should never have shamed his wife and crowned another. Nor did he heed me when I begged him not to ride out. The sunlight flashed as he mounted up, and even awake I could see the rubies flying. My maids believed my black dress a show of my allegiance, but I was in mourning before my son reached the gate.

On my knees – no easy feat with a swollen belly – I pleaded with Aerys. But my dreams were obdurate. “Elia stays, as do my grandchildren,” my king declared. Heavy-hearted, I bid my good daughter farewell and assured her we would meet again in no time at all. It was the truth, in a way.

Now the storm rages, and I hold my last babe in my arms. I know her. I dreamed of her even in the womb. I tell no one; I am so _tired_ of no one listening.

I dream new dreams now. Wings. And a voice, so loud the earth trembles. Everyone cannot help but hear it.

 _“Fire and Blood_.”

**Author's Note:**

> Originally published on [tumblr](http://tywinning.tumblr.com/post/39367011700/youre-hurting-me-sometimes-i-had-to-cry-out)


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